


The Meandering Exploration Experiment

by epicycles



Category: The Middleman (TV)
Genre: Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicycles/pseuds/epicycles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is only one Middleman.  Sometimes he has to travel around a bit to get the job done.  (aka Scenes From A Road Trip!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meandering Exploration Experiment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinealightonme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/gifts).



> Yuletide 2011 gift for shinealightonme! Hope you like it!
> 
> Some of the sections are emails, some are text messages. I can't quite get the formatting right so I hope it makes sense! :D

"Are you sure you have everything? Your toothbrush?  Socks?  Sketchbook? Mysterious video watch from your temp job that involves a suspicious amount of travel to undisclosed locations?"

"Yes, Lacey, I checked.  If you spoke Spanish you would sound just like my mother."  Wendy did a last once-over of her suitcase.  Clothes, check.  Hairbrush, check.  Hidden pockets containing a variety of strange and not-quite-user-friendly Middlegadgets, check.  "It's only a road trip.  I'll be fine."

Lacey bit her lip.  "Are you sure you don't need me to come along to protect you from Sexy Boss Man?  You know, like a chaperone?"

"I'm pretty sure that you would be the worst chaperone in the world."  Wendy manhandled her suitcase out the door and into the elevator, then turned and gave Lacey a hug.  "Look after Tyler and Noser for me while I'm gone.  Make sure to let them out at least once a day."

"Oh DubDub, I'll miss you!"  Lacey squeezed her.

"It's a good thing I didn't do that junior year abroad.  I'll be back in a few weeks, Lace."

It took two more hugs before Wendy escaped downstairs with her suitcase to find the Middleman waiting for her with the Middlemobile.  "Ready, Dubbie?"

"Ready to fight what evils may lurk in the uncharted wilderness of the American Midwest, aye-aye!" Wendy saluted.  

"Now, before we begin I should warn you, the Middlemobile possesses certain extra capabilities that are activated for cases of long-range operations like this."

Wendy paused, her suitcase half into the trunk.  "What kind of capabilities?"

"Me, for a start," the car said, in a horribly familiar voice.  "And I can tell if you've been smoking reefer before you get behind the wheel, missy."

"Ida here will be handling our surveillance and navigation needs through a remote uplink to the Middlemobile."

"Oh God, I'm in Knight Rider," Wendy groaned.

"Cheer up, Dubbie, the adventure awaits!"  The Middleman grinned and slid into the driver's seat.

It was only a few weeks, Wendy reminded herself.  A few weeks trapped in a talking car with her boss.  No problem for a Middleman in training.  Piece of cake.

"Get in, hophead, we've got a world to save!"

Right.

****  


hey babe how's the road trip going

    shoot me now

*bang*

i'm guessing it's not the whirwind of joy and adventure you envisioned

    i now know all the words to every song ever sung by gene autry. 
    this is taking up valuable space in my brain previously devoted to comic book trivia
    and pancake recipes

no! not the pancake recipes!

    also i think the car hates me

it's jealous. it can smell the smartcar.

if you want I can set fire to the loft so you have to come home

that's just the kind of helpful guy i am

    offers of arson, every girl's dream
    i think i will survive without you having to commit any felonies
    nobody ever died of boredom, right?

****

"Dubbie! Down!"

Wendy hit the floor and rolled.  The orange tentacle passed just over her head, spattering a few drops of something incredibly gross on her jacket.

The Middleman ran past her, luring the creature towards the back of the diner.  It lumbered after him, completely ignoring Wendy in favor of snatching up hamburgers as it passed -- each of its many groping arms clutched either a burger or a plastic cup of soda and it crammed them into its gaping mouths in a neverending stream.

The junk-food-craving space mutant cornered the Middleman against the back wall of the diner, clearly mistaking him for a cheeseburger due to the abundance of lettuce and special sauce decorating his Eisenhower jacket.   Its back was to Wendy as its tentacles reached eagerly for a particularly big chunk of onion ring on his lapel.

"Now, Dubbie!" he yelled.

Wendy pulled out her Middletaser and fired, catching the gelatinous mound in a stream of blue lightning that sent it quivering and stumbling away from her boss to smash into the jukebox, which hiccuped once then began playing "Don't Fence Me In."

Wendy held up a finger.  "No singing."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Dubbie," said the Middleman, wading through the mustard pools to help haul her to her feet.

****  
To: spokenwords@gmail.com  
From: wwatson@jollyfatsweehauken.net  
Re: Road Trip: The Legend Continues

Hey Lacey

Greetings from Kalamazoo, Michigan!  I had no idea Kalamazoo was actually a real place.  The things you learn on road trips, right?

The Boss and I are making good time.  I think we'll get done with our urgent temping-related tour of the US before he runs out of country songs and I run out of batteries on my noise-cancelling headphones.  Things are actually going pretty well, under the circumstances.  (The circumstances being that we haven't murdered each other yet). You know what they say, you don't really know someone until you are trapped with them in a car for a month with no other sources of entertainment besides fuzzy radio stations and games of Punch Buggy.

I sent you and Noser postcards from Roswell, you might get them before I get back.  The answer to your question is, yes I brought my sketchbook but no I haven't had time to draw.  I think I'll have plenty of material by the time I get home.  And the answer to Noser's question is One Nation Under a Groove.

I hope you are keeping out of trouble while I'm not around to bail you out.  I will try to be back for your Leather Is Murder Just Like Fur demonstration so you can commit as much misdemeanor mayhem as you please.

See you in two weeks!  
DubDub

PS We stopped off at a state fair and got our photos taken at one of those old-time photo places.  Because I am such a good and loyal friend I've attached a picture of "Sexy Bossman" in his cowboy outfit.

PPS I got a picture of him from the back too, just for you.  That one is too, uh, "sensitive" to send over my work email, you'll just have to wait until I get back to see it. :)  

****  
   
The Middleman was still wearing his cowboy hat.

Leave it to him to get stranded in his dream era, where he could dress up like Gary Cooper and order glasses of milk in saloons.  Wendy got stuck with 1973.

Polyester: not as comfortable as it looks.

"Did you find the device?"  the Middleman asked.

Wendy held it up wordlessly.  It was a little aluminum ball about three inches wide, with a few blinking lights on the top.  It hardly looked like a dimensional shifting portal that would could send unsuspecting Middlemen and Middlemen-in-training hurtling back and forth through time like ping pong balls until they could retrieve it and unlock its secret codes to return to their time of origin.  It looked more like a child's toy version of Sputnik.

"Good work, Dubbie.  I apprehended Dr. Robespierre --"  at this he shook the small bespectacled man dangling in his grip, also dressed like an Old West outlaw with the exception of his sneakers and Bluetooth earpiece "-- and so all that's left is to destroy the device and hopefully restore anyone else this maniac has stranded in time for his own nefarious purposes."

Wendy smashed the little tin ball against the trunk of the Middlemobile.  Dr. Robespierre groaned in defeat and a desk chair, a houseplant, two very surprised grad students and a parking enforcement officer popped back into view.

They all very nicely posed for a group picture before scurrying off to their homes and families.  Wendy was pretty sure she was going to paint it.

****

"No Mom, I'm not running away with him to get married and give you grandchildren.  What do you mean, why not?  I told you, I'm not a lesbian -- No, Mom, neither is he.  Yes, I got the cake from Aunt Consuela.  Lacey put it in the fridge for me, I'll eat it when I get back.  No, I'm not anorexic.  Love you too, Mom."

****

"Take it easy on the gas pedal, sweetcheeks.   I've heard THC slows down your reaction time."

"I will turn this car around."

"Please, I'm your GPS, map display and navigation equipment.  Without me you couldn't take us to the nearest head shop, let alone back to HQ."

"Well, I definitely remember there was a lake a few miles back that looked deep enough to at least take out your voice circuits, KITT."

"Try me, Hasselhoff."

There was a quiet snuffle from the back seat and Wendy and Ida both went silent.  He was finally asleep for the first time after what felt like weeks of endless driving and running and fighting and negotiating with intelligent vegetables, with no time to stop and regroup in between all the nonstop crises.  He looked tired, dark-ringed eyes and imperfect hair, his jacket balled up and shoved between his cheek and the car window.  

Wendy was tired too, but she was good to drive so she drove.  She'd never been so glad not to be the boss, now that she knew just how rarely he can turn off, relax.

Ida turned on the radio, a gentle hum of classical music, and Wendy drove.

****

"I cannot _believe_ you have never played mini golf.  Pull over."

****

"I am sorry, Dubbie, but as you know a Middleman must answer when duty calls, even if it happens to be on the fifteenth hole of the Pirates Cove Miniature Golf Extravaganza."

Wendy sat on the coils of a giant fiberglass boa constrictor -- now thankfully motionless and back to its original job of eating brightly colored golf balls and crapping them out onto the putting green -- and dipped her hair into the water hazard.  "There's ectoplasm in my hair.  Does this stuff come out?"

The Middleman hung his jacket on the slowly waving sword of a wooden pirate and starting wringing blue goo out of his tie.  "You may need to get some stronger shampoo.  But on the bright side, we saved the good people of this undersized golf course from being eaten by the decorative sculptures suddenly brought to vivid and carnivorous life by the malevolent forces of a necromancer/madman."

"True," Wendy said, pulling string of green jelly from behind her ear.  "And right up until the ostrich ate my ball I was _totally_ winning."

"Bragging shows weakness of character, Dubbie."

****

hey dubster what's up

hey

uh-oh youve finally cracked and driven into the hoover dam

i knew it would come to this

wendy?

    sorry we were out getting tacos
    tacos are the best
    i would bring you some but im pretty sure they only last eighteen seconds at room temperature

its okay i forgive you

come back soon 

i am about to beat your high score on gutwrencher 3

****

Wendy dropped into the driver's seat, settled her coffee in the cupholder, adjusted the mirror and ignored Ida's morning insinuations about her mary jane hangover.

"Where to today, Boss?  Alien infiltration into a Missouri Arby's?  Genetically mutated camels rampaging across the New Mexican desert?  Mind control drugs in Starbucks coffee?  Actually that one might be real.  Is that one real?  Don't answer that."  Wendy took another drink of sweet, sweet caffeine.  "Where's it going to be?"

"Home, Dubbie."  

Wendy paused, hand on the ignition key.  "What?"

The Middleman wasn't looking at her.  "We've been away from HQ long enough.  We've taken care of most of the alien sleeper cells and criminal masterminds lurking out here in the Midwest and Ida is reporting a build-up of incoming requests from O2STK.  We'd better get back to the home base."

Wendy sat back against the Middlemobile's shock-cushioned seat.  She wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.  "Huh."

Her boss still wasn't looking at her, and she definitely knew how she felt about that.  "So...right now, we're off the clock, right?  We aren't racing home to defeat an incoming alien menace before it destroys life as we know it?  Just a regular drive."

"Yes," the Middleman answered.  "Though we really do have to answer the Clotharian ambassador's invitation to play squash before it becomes an intergalactic incident."

Well, in that case...

"What do you say we take the long way home?" Wendy asked, and turned the key.


End file.
